Kukla's Korner Hockey

It’s the age-old question: If offered a pill that would make you a multi-millionaire, but kill you in 10 years - would you take it?

For me, the answer is no. But, there are other, similar, scenarios where my answer would be yes.

Like Ian Laperriere’s.

Laperriere is the kind of player every fan can root for. He’s never taken the easy way out, fighting and scrapping his way through 1,083 games. He’ll throw his body in front of everything, one of the reasons his nose looks like a road map of the Don Valley Parkway.

Minutes before his Flyers eliminated New Jersey in the first round of last year’s playoffs, Laperriere suffered a brain contusion after blocking a Paul Martin shot. He missed 10 games, returning with a face shield.

On Tuesday, he admitted that shouldn’t have happened. Laperriere did have headaches, even though he passed all of the testing required by the team and the NHL